History of a book: The exhibition of children’s Christmas book at the National Library of Russia in Saint-Petersburg

December 15, 2014 in the New building of the National Library of Russia (Saint-Petersburg) opens the book-illustrative exposition “The Nutcracker and the company: the exhibition of children’s Christmas book”.

The exhibition features rare editions of the end of the XIX – early XX century from the NLR collections. Among the exhibits there are the classic of European and Russian Christmas story. These are Christmas stories, fairy-tales, poems. 

The main section of the exhibition is dedicated to the favorite children’s hero Nutcracker. The visitors will learn about the fairy-tale of Hoffmann “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, and how the world-famous ballet created.

The exhibition tells of the history of the genre of the Christmas story. In Western literature it was created by Charles Dickens, he is told to “create Christmas”.  

The exhibition is complemented with a unique collection of national and foreign Christmas and New Year postcards of the end of the XIX- early XX century.

The books are provided by the Russian Book Fund, the Foreign Book Fund, the Department of Prints.